Dr. David Wilmington

Professor of Theology and Philosophy

David’s Story

Professor David Wilmington designed and teaches the 2-year “Faith & Life” curriculum—an wide-reaching yet in-depth, integrated course of study covering Church History, Introduction to Theology, Introduction to Ethics, Theology & Culture, and significant exposure to philosophy. This track draws consistently from (and assigns) music, movies, and other art as significant course texts that help us think, speak, and write more faithfully and beautifully about God.

Professor Wilmington studied music, literature, and Spanish at Washington and Lee University (with one year focusing solely on music in the Jazz Studies program at Virginia Commonwealth University) and graduated as a University Scholar with a B.A. in Music Performance (saxophone). He earned his Master of Theological Studies at Duke University Divinity School while working with Geoffrey Wainwright, and his Ph.D. in Religion, with a focus in Theology, from Baylor University, writing under the direction of Barry Harvey. Along the way, he had the privilege of working with mentors such as Albert Murray, Reinhard Hütter, Stanley Hauerwas, Thomas Hibbs, David Lyle Jeffrey, and Ralph Wood.

While on that long and winding road, Professor Wilmington worked as a Network Engineer, High School and Middle School language arts curriculum designer and teacher, saxophone teacher, soccer coach, jazz radio announcer, and independent film writer and producer.

Professor Wilmington taught undergraduate courses at Baylor University in the Great Texts Program of the Honors College and in the Religion Department, as well as Masters courses for Truett Theological Seminary and the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, before joining the faculty of Yellowstone Theological Institute.

Professor Wilmington’s research and writing interests reflect his unique formative experiences. His forthcoming book, A Pregnant Silence: Negative Theology and Virtues Ethics, brings together critiques of postmodern negative theology, Christian apophatic and mystical traditions, contemporary virtues ethics, and St. Bonaventure. He also continues to draw from his musical identity by presenting and publishing on the harmony of Trinitarian Theology and what jazz improvisation (training and performance) can teach us about theological formation and ethics.

His next major research and writing project will further develop work on improvisation, music, and ethics in conjunction with Bonaventure and the social, political, and musical aesthetics of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray.

Outside of—but not unrelated to—work at YTI, he enjoys playing, coaching, and watching soccer, mountain hiking and camping, playing saxophone, watching and talking about movies and music, and the frequent eating and occasional cooking of Mexican food. The best version of all of those activities always involves his wife, Molly, and children Luke and Anna Grace.

Invited Lectures and Panels

“Transcendence on the Cheap? Going ‘Beyond’ Enough in Bailey (2008),” Scholar/Filmmaker Panel, Concordia University Seminar Conversations at the Intersection of
Faith and Film (Austin, TX), March 2016.

“Metaphysics and the Baptist Academy: Baptist Resources for Contemporary Theology,” Young Scholars in the Baptist Academy (Honolulu, HI), 2010.

“Democracy as Improvisation: A Jazz Corrective to Jeffrey Stout on Tradition, Authority
and ‘Common Morality’ in Religious and Political Discourse,” National Association of Baptist Professors of Religion (Atlanta, GA), 2010.